Sly

If it’s Coleman, anyone that saw the Sunderland documentary, knows how it goes. I could see us also refusing to spend any money and being relegated to League 1.

Maybe says more about the state of our training setup.

Football goes though cycles. However one style doesn’t dictate the world of football. Whilst Pep was doing his thing, Simeone was still playing a much darker arts game and we were counter attacking. The reality is on us, we have played that can’t adapt, or aren’t as effective. Once Tielemans, Maddison etc were gone; we were in effect a pound shop Pep club from 10 years ago.

This annoyed me a lot more than it should have done. I get the younger generation get to see a parade etc, however it was still celebrating failure in my eyes.

I mean, we assume he’s the problem (a major problem), however for all we know, the rest of the current board could be totally clueless as well. If you think back when we first moved to Seagrave; did we ever replace Paul McGuiness? As we’ve grown, have we just piled onto the existing staff and expected them to cope. Our entire back room staffing and boardroom seems like a mess from an outsider looking in. If they were only just coping before, once we’ve grown, they’d have no hope.

We need a change. We need someone in that understands football and for that person to be given power to run the club day to day. That person needs to be the new CEO and have total authority over the entire structure. If that means we need to rebuild the stadium, sack Rudkin, promote Rudkin etc, they need the authority to do It and not sit around waiting for Top to approve it. King Power can stay for me, as long as we sort this out. We need a CEO that understands football. A Commercial Director from within Sport that will grow our revenue. I’m surprised they haven’t spoken to the likes of Michael Zork since he left Dortmund, or Dan Ashworth. An Operations Director that can streamline and improve how we run, taking those 1%. In sport you’re looking at Txiki Begiristain, or outside of football go for someone like Dave Brailsford. If we have to pay to have the best people in the world and King Power find it. Then get it done. At the moment we are a hot mess and hiring people from the retail sector, or random horse racing stables, as we network about as well as a block of mould cheese.

I was thinking this. I would also state we take his grasp of English at face value, however it is not his first language. This could also cause communication issues within the club.

Whilst we have Stolarkzyk as a goalkeeper, no point in us adopting a philosophy of ball retention. He’s not good enough to play the sweeper / keeper role and become the 11th outfield player. Our next challenge is though, that we lack both fitness and physicality in my opinion. That is understandable when you consider our squad has lots of younger players who are still developed in For me though, it’s got to be a 4-3-3 setup as we don’t have the players to play any other way. We aren’t going to dominate the ball, therefore we need to be slightly more directly. You sort of end up with: GK - Stolarkzyk - Shot stopper, needs to command area better. LB - We need a fullback that can support higher and push us up the pitch. Ricardo is the one to this as he doesn’t invert as much at left back. It sort of isolated Mavididi being ineffective at left back with any other fullback. Kristiansen is an option once fit. CB - Vestergaard, for the more directly, accurate passing out to the wide players if we go more directly. CB - Nelson, as above with Vestergaard. If Nelson is playing left back, It’ll be Souttar or Okoli. RB - Choudhury, however he needs to up his game and not invert. He’s playing wide to generate space for Fatawu to cut inside. He needs to sit in behind him and get forward to overlap where possible. He’s one that has the physical attributes and an engine. He needs to use it correctly. CDM / Double Pivot - Skipp and Winks, purely so he can do the ball winning role and become the water carriers with the press. 10s - I’d go with James or Ramsay as an option, should he ever be fit. Page is an option but he’s better later in games. Front free is Mavididi, Daka and Fatawu. Daka needs to play just to push the other team back, as they’ll be worried about him running in behind. We’ve allowed so many teams to squeeze us when we can’t keep the ball, which caused our own problems. Again, Monga and Thomas can be options late in games. We than go directly from the centre backs to the wide areas, using the midfield to press for the 2nd ball if it isn’t won. The double pivot helps with this. We need out wide players to isolate fullbacks and not rely on them to be deeper undertaking defensive work. The entire team needs to tilt though once we play the ball out to either wide player. We’ve been terrible at this all season. If it goes out to Fatawu, the entire team needs to shuffle to that side. Skipp needs to hold his position and pick Up opposing 10s breaking the lines. The centre backs hold the line so they don’t get caught. Something Faes was so guilty of. We also need to sort out press out and do it as a team. Currently it’s all over the place.

Reports out saying we won’t sign anyone. Call me shocked.

Jakub mark II!

I think this lot jumping ship will be good for the Conservatives and get it back toward a more centre right party, rather than whatever Boris pushed it to become. All of these defectors are further right than your traditional Tory party member I’d say, so they’ll be better off without them. They just need to stabilise and reset. They’ve got plenty of time to mount a serious challenge come the next general election, if they get the house in order.

Xavi Calm is still shown as being employed on the website. Cifuentes has been removed.

I think we’ll beat Charlton on Saturday, then we’ll get loads of “give it to Kingy” posters. We’ll likely revert to type after that, if he stays as interim for a foreseeable period.

Okay, common phrase. Which player has disappointed you the most this season? I’m not talking about pilling in on Luke Thomas or Jordan Ayew here. I’m on about who do you expect to achieve much more than they have done. For me, it’s a toss up between Ricardo and Mavididi. Purely from the levels they showed under Maresca to now, you think they were different players.

He gets the same treatment on here; that Ayoze Perez got. If they’d both cost £1m then they’d get rave reviews. Neither decided the transfer fee that was agreed for them, therefore it’s always harsh to beat them with it. Skipp does a steady job, whilst not exactly pulling up any trees. If we had more more with his commitment and determination though, we’d have more points. Football is such a close game at the top level. Injuries can knock %’s of ability off you and that’s why we have seen such a drastic falloff from the likes of Ricardo. If they’d both cost start semi injured, then they’ve got no hope of adhering themselves to internet forum posters, as they become scapegoats.

Graham Potter

Current odds are: Andy King - 2/1 Russell Martin - 4/1 Lee Carsley - 6/1 Gary O’Neill - 8/1 Stephen Gerrard - 8/1 Robbie Keane - 12/1 Gary Rowatt - 14/1 Wayne Rooney - 14/1 Michael Skubala - 16/1 Ole Gunnar Solksjaer - 16/1 Will Still - 20/1 Michael Beale - 20/1 Paddy McCarthy - 20/1 Jon Dahl Tommason - 20/1 Damien Duff - 20/1 Alex Revell - 20/1

This 100%.

He isn’t the answer. The melt down as well, when he announces: Thomas, Soumare, Winks, Daka and Choudhury in his first selection

He looks more mobile than Jordan Ayew

Pearson summary of the Susan Whelan departure tells you everything you need to know about the current state of the board.

Realistically we need a pragmatic manager / head coach to steady the ship and sort the culture out. This typically equals boring and unexciting and normally more defensive type players. Pearson was this type. Moyes is this type. I’d have Southgate in a heartbeat right now. More as he carries respect. I know it’ll be hated on but he’ll take no shit and sort the back room out. We will end up going for a Will Still, Russell Martin, De Zebri, Marsche or attempt to entice someone like Xavi and wonder why he isn’t returning our phone calls.

If they’d have given Dean Smith 5 more games, I think we’d have stayed up. That’s the crazy thing. Fans do jump and call For the inevitable early, however realistically this has been on the wall since October. Why they need a special board meeting to discuss this is just crazy.

Oh, it will be horrendous if I’m honest. No investment and we will plummet. Relying on youth development is fine, if you at the level of Manchester City etc. We have gone from being the best team in the midlands, to being below Villa, Forest, Wolves, Coventry, Birmingham, Stoke and Derby (maybe WBA as well). I don’t think we’ve finished falling yet either. Once the likes of Winks, Ayew etc leave, then if we don’t invest and rely on youth, we’ll just fall further. They have ability but realistically the Championship is still a high level of football. The ability to play at this level isn’t suited to having a team of 17 - 20 year olds without experience. I really do think they have this vision and have underestimated it, thus we are sleep walking into impending doom.

You do still get parachute payments to my knowledge. At this point, I do wonder if we are committing self sabotage to save up money to fund a stadium that will be 2/3 empty. We’d have a huge financial advantage with the amount it is. That parachute payment alone would be larger than half the divisions wage bills.